


The mermaid who can't sing

by LadyShark



Category: Free!
Genre: M/M, Slow Build, human!Rin, mermaid!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-04-15 07:51:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4598766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShark/pseuds/LadyShark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mermaid's rule number one: never talk to a human being. Makoto and Haruka never really intended to go against the rules, but when Makoto starts to visit the surface, Haruka wants to know why; and he discovers that, maybe, humans are not so bad as he heard on the stories...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I know the mermaid AU isn't something new in Free! fanfics, but I couldn't help doing one myself. I actually wrote this long ago, but just now gained enough courage to finish and post... For now this fic is mostly fluff, but I will keep it rated T for possible slight sexual insinuations and minor injuries, but don't worry.  
> I must warn english is not my first language, so most probably there are errors in there. Just point them to me and I will do my best to correct it.
> 
> Enjoy your read!

Some of the old sailors advise to never sing on the high seas. Although not everyone believes in such superstitions, they end up following them, be it for safety, or purely out of habit. And, indeed, it's better that they do so.

The sea was never a silent place. The constant noise of the waves, crashing one after another, the million sounds emited by the creatures that there lived... but amongst all of these, one is unmistakable: the voice of a mermaid. It's a soothing melody, capable of silencing any other sound with it's beauty; fascinating, but at the same time, deadly. The sailors know that, if you hear a mermaid singing, you must not give in to it's spell; or you will be bewitched and dragged to the bottom of the ocean. Thus, these creatures are feared and avoided by the boats that venture in the moonlight.

These are the stories told by the old sailors. However, no one had ever heard the version told by the sweet voice of a mermaid...


	2. The curious little mermaid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make the mermaids use different words for things like 'children' and 'people' (like 'cub'), but since the words I picked are originally from my language, I don't know if their english equivalents are correct. If you notice anything too weird, please notice me!

The sea was so calm that morning, Makoto thought. He enjoyed the days when the weather was like this. With circular motions, he swam across the water's surface, allowing the sunlight to warm the exposed skin of his back. After some minutes, he raised his head and took a deep breath, diving soon after.

The moment he did, he sensed something in the water around him. He imediatelly prepared himself to flee. Makoto was big for a twelve-years-old, however, he wasn't capable of defending himself from a predator's attack yet. Plus, his docile nature secretly would rather a thousand times running away than fighting.

He stood frozen for some seconds, watchful. Suddenly, another moviment, and a glimpse of grey, and he relaxed.

"Gosh, Haru-chan, you scared me!" Makoto smiled as the 'greyish moviment' stopped before him, floating in the water.

Despite being a few months older, Haruka Nanase was smaller than the other boy. Owner of raven coloured hair and stunningly beautiful blue eyes, he wasn't one of talking much, but Makoto always knew what he was feeling. Not rarely, he was the one who helped Haruka to express himself.

Haruka swam around Makoto with a certain irritation.

"Quit calling me this way" he complained, clearly bothered by the pet name, which his friend just responded with another smile "what are you doing here?"

"I? I...I just came here to breathe..." Makoto was suddenly unconfortable. It was obvious that he wouldn't fool the other with a lie like this, but if there was somebody in the world that didn't know how to lie, it was Makoto.

"You know how dangerous it is to come this close from the beach" Haruka's expression remained imutable "why are you here?"

Makoto lowered his gaze. That he shouldn't get too near the surface, he knew. He also knew that, if they found about this, his parents wouldn't be happy. It wasn't like he was naughty, or liked to hide things from them, but...

"Haru, I can't lie to you. But you must promise you won't tell my mother."

Haruka nodded softly.

"I came here to visit a man."

"Man?" Haruka expression finally changed "you mean...an human?"

Of course, for them, it was nonsensical. After all, humans were well know for their cruelty, specially against other species, and who could tell what they could do to creatures like them?

Like mermaids?

\-----♥------

Iwatobi was a pacific island. It housed a relatively small amount of people, most of them dedicated to the fishing activity. It was a good place. Haruka and Makoto, however, didn't live exactly on the island, but on the sea surrounding it.

Iwatobi's reef was the perfect home to the mermaids that lived there. At this point of the ocean, there were plenty of food and was practically free of marine predators, allowing the cubs to play at pleasure out of their den. However, there was a limit at how far this freedom reached. According to the rules, their existence must remain a secret, thus every mermaid should avoid getting near the beach as much as possible; to hunt humans was extrictly prohibited. All this because, if the reef got discovered, all the mermaids that made this place their home would certainly be extermined by the feared humans. But even so, there were always the bold ones that dared to sing loudly outside the water or shake their tails in front of a boat, just to have fun with the confusion and the stories the humans invented out of these subtle apparitions.

It was hard, though, to say the same about the kids. Cubs, in their longing for knowledge, were curious by nature, and even thought their parents alerted them, there was always the desire to find out how was the so-talked-about human's world. The adults told scary stories about cubs that were captured by beasts and evil boats for disobeying the rules, always exaggerating to scare the little ones. However, what impressed Haruka was the fact that Makoto, the easiest guy to scare in the whole village, was the one to do such a thing as become friends with an human. Uneasy, the little raven watched the black tail of his friend going up and down while he swam to the surface.

Suddenly, Haruka saw a shadow above the water ahead, and Makoto stopped.

"Come with me now, Haru-chan." he put his finger over his mouth, asking for caution, and guided his friend near a big submerged pillar. "be careful with those lines, don't touch any of them" he pointed to a few threads that hung on the water, some having colorful objects on their tips. Makoto then swam in zigzag towards the surface.

Haruka took a deep breath when the air filled his lungs. He waited carefully for his eyes to get used to the blinding sunlight before opening them completely, and his pupils thinned like a cat's. He heard Makoto’s voice then, and turned to see him looking up at a wood platform, talking to an old man.

An human being.

"My my, Makoto, what are you doing here?" the man’s voice was hoarse from age, but still held some kind of vigor.

"I came to see you. I brought my friend too!" he motioned to Haruka "Haru-chan, come here!"

  
Following Makoto's gesture, the old man’s eyes turned to the smaller mermaid. Haruka only motioned with his head, not knowing much what to do.

"Oh, hello, little boy! There's no need to be shy, come here" standing on the warf, he was limited to see only part of the old man’s body, but he didn’t seem as scary as Haru had thought "what is you name, little friend?"

"Haruka..." he lowered his voice on the last sillabe, like he always did. The human, though, didn't seem to notice.

"Pleased to meet you. I’m Silas."

"Can you show Haru that little golden ball you have?" Makoto pleaded eagerly.

"Just a second" the man escaped the boys sight for a few seconds, but soon returned, bringing with him a chain with a rounded object on it's tip.

"Here. Open it" the man lowered the object to a level where Haruka could touch it. The boy hesitated a little, but raised his damp hands to touch the cold metal.

He slid his fingers by the extension of the object, drinking into each detail. It wasn’t very different from what he was used to, but it felt different to touch something that was (originally) dry; and it was bright, _very bright_.

"Look at the button at the bottom. Found it? Press and it will open." Without raising his eyes, Haruka searched and found an small protrusion. He pressed it, and the object got split in two.

 _Like an oyster_ , he thought. But, instead of a pearl, there was a round glass covering several small symbols draw in a white circle. There was, too, on the other half of the object, the picture of a female, but what called his attention the most were the little flat fishes that followed the symbols; one jumping one after another, while the other just waited, immobile.

"Do you like it?" the man laughed at the fascination in which the little mermaid stared at the object "I like it a lot, too. It’s handed on from generation to generation in my family. The woman is my grandmother."

Haruka looked reluctantly from the man to the object.

"And what is it for?"

"It’s a clock. It's for marking the hours, the time, and guide us in our chores."

Seeing his friend’s confused expression, it was the time for Makoto to speak.

"The human day is different from ours, Haru-chan. Instead of counting the days by the sun and the moon, they count it by numbers. It's the clock that says when the day starts and when it ends."

Haruka nodded, but he didn't think he had understood it very well. To live following numbers, instead of the sunlight? Wouldn't it be much simpler to follow the cicle already set by the nature, instead of a small golden ball...?

Suddenly, he felt weird. Makoto seemed to know a lot about the human world, and he looked so happy talking to that man....

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it? Mermaids shouldn’t talk to humans.

Quietly, Haruka dived and swam away. Maybe it was better to go home.

However, thought he had gave up on the human's world, he must admit he was still curious about the surface. Truth to be told, he had never been there before, and things seemed so... different.

 _It wouldn't hurt to swim just a little_ longer.

He slided through the water, avoiding the lines. He wandered, till he noticed he was in a different place from before.

The water there were clearer, and there were no more lines hanging on the water. The profundity was also significantly smaller. He emerged, and the warf wasn’t on sight anymore; instead, he saw rocks and sand; he was on the beach.

The boy absorbed the sight before him, curious. The waves, that at this point weren't more than smooth disturbances on the sea, grew before him for some meters, till they broke on the sand carpet, that extended for a long space till turning into grass, that he could see at the background. There were also big rocks, both in the water and sand.

 _Beautiful_ , he thought. Not as much as the bottom of the sea, but still, beautiful.

Suddenly, a noise woke him from his daze,  and he quickly turned around.

A small human stood above the sand. _A cub_ , haruka imediatelly recognized, _like him_. The boy didn't seem to have noticed his presence, and ran towards the water, as Haru took the chance to hide behind the rocks.

 _What is he doing?_ He watched the boy crouch on the water, soaking his red locks with his hands. It looked like he was playing. What intrigued Haru the most was that, althought the human didn’t have any clothes on, from waist till the top of his legs the boy’s skin had a dark color, with some red stripes. _All without any scale..._ The human, then, jumped on the water, startling the young mermaid.

It took some time to Haruka to realize he was moving across the water, swiming.

Haruka watched everything happen with a mix of interest and irritation. So, humans could swim? He did not know that. Of course, the boy wasn’t as fast as him, but still a shock.

He saw the human stop and raise his head, sighing in a timid way. Strangely, Haru felt himself wishing to come closer. Even if he had thought that about Makoto, seeing that human like this... he was curious. He wanted to know more about those weird creatures.

Till that moment, Haruka hadn’t realize how hard he was gripping the rock, and before he could, the piece under his hands it cramble down. He managed to keep his balance just in time, but the rock fell in the water making a loud noise.

_Oh,no!_

The human was now staring at him. Both froze.

"Who are you?" 

_What do I do?_ Haruka opened and closed his mouth, unable to  articulate words. He couldn't talk to an human being! For a second, he thought about running away, but he feared the boy seeing his tail when diving.

"Why were you watching me?" the boy didn't seem shocked anymore, but embarassed. Haruka nervously choose to say the first thing that came to him.

"I-it’s none of your business."

"Uah, how rude" the boy looked away, unimpressed. For a moment, no one said a thing. "You...like to swim?"

"What?"

"You were swimming before you saw me, right?" he pointed to Haruka "you are really far from the sand."

It was true. And where he was, Haruka thought, it wouldn’t take long for him to notice that it wasn’t shallow enough for any human.

Completely giving up on any excuse, Haruka jumped on the water. The boy yelled something, but with water filling his ears, he couldn’t hear anything anymore. _Stupid._ He shouldn’t have complied with Makoto’s foolish idea. He just hoped that cub wouldn’t bring any real risk.

Lost in his worries, the little mermaid did not noticed the ship approaching at full speed, and the moment he realized the danger, it was already too late.

"Ah!" The hard hull of the ship hit his body with full strenght. He tried to get away, but with his head still spinning from the impact, he just got himself more and more entangled by the thick threads moving around the ship, and suddenly, a sharp pain shoot throught his tail. The burn made he want to scream in pain. He tried one more time, and finally, managed to free himself, being harshly pushed away by the tides created by the ship quickly moving away.

Dizzy and exausted, he didn’t even try to fight the waves gently dragging him to the beach.

Haru fell on the moist sand, feeling too tired to move. He stayed still for a while, the hammering heart on his chest trying his best to recover from the fright. Till he heard footsteps and opened his eyes in a jump.

"Hey!" panicking, he saw the same boy from before running in his direction. He tried to crawl back to the water, but he couldn’t; it was hard to move with sand scratching from beneath his body, plus, his back hurt immensely. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t run away anymore, but they are far from the boat's vision. He could still have a chance.

The boy stopped when the mermaid turned to him and bared his teeth.

"Wow, calm down!"

It was a common gesture amongst mermaids, specially the younger ones, to expose their fangs in order to frighten an enemy- although Haru didn’t exaclty had fangs yet. But it was all he could think.

For a moment, it really semmed to work. The boy keept still, but he soon started to come closer again.

"I have teeth too, ok?" he said in an half-offended tone, opening his mouth with a frown.

Haruka jumped. The boy's teeth were quite sharp, too.

Seeing how the boy in front of him was cringing away, the little human decided to stop as he was still a few meters away from him. He crouched and remained silent for a while

Haruka wondered if, from that distance, he could bite him.

"Mmm, are you okay?" the boy tried "that boat ran over you, it must have hurt. I tried to warn you, but you just ran away."

Haruka remained in silence.

"I already know you can talk, ok? Stop acting like this, I won’t bite you" he said, noticing how Haruka watched him suspiciously "you look like an animal..."

The boy turned his head to face the sea, and it was just then that his eyes fell on Haruka's lower body. His eyes widened and breath was knocked out of his lungs. He reached out to touch it, but Haruka twisted his body away, splashing water; the move, however, was too much for his sore back, and he let out a yelp of pain.

"H-hey, calm down!" the boy hesitated, his expression stuck somewhere between amazement and worry "I won’t hurt you! I promise!"

Haruka took a full look at the boy before him. Really, he didn’t seem **that** dangerous. He wasn’t bigger than Haruka himself... he could be an human, but he was only a cub. And his eyes, his eyes had a curious glitter, something he wouldn’t ever expect to see in the eyes of predator.

_But it could just be the way humans looked at their victims._

"...You won’t?" he asked, suspicious.

"No. Why I would do that?"

Haruka shrugged.

"You do these kind of stuff, don’t you? Like, without reason."

"We don’t!" the boy went mad "and who is you to say? It’s me who should be worried, in first place! Don’t you eat people?"

"Where you got those ideas from??"

The two stopped, like something had just finally hit them. The boy looked away, and so did Haru.

"...What do you know about us?" Haruka worried that he might have accidentaly dropped some important information.

"I... for real, I know nothing. I'm just used to hear stories about people like you, half-fish creatures that sing beautifully and eat the sailors. But to be honest, I never really believed they existed... I mean, but if you are really true..."

"Of course I’m true!" Haruka thrashed his tail, angry "and it doesn’t make any sense! I’m not a fish, and not everyone eat humans!"

"You mean there are more like you? Wait, and there are ones who actually do eat?" The boy's eyes widened.

Haruka puffed his cheeks. "Humans are such fools, fools, fools. I can’t undestand how they managed to conquer the surface like this."

"Hey, don't be so rude! I have no way of knowing nothing of this, ok?" he chided "After all...I have never seen anyone like you before."

 _Actually, I haven’t too..._ In the end, he had something in common with that human. No, wait, he wasn’t feeling something like _sympathy_ for him, right?

Suddenly, he moved, and felt his back burn again.

"Ah, the bruise!" the boy leaned towards him, but Haruka crawled away again, the pain just worsening with the moviment.

"Calm down, stop being so stubborn!" the boy gazed down at him with big red eyes. "You can’t go back to the sea like this, don’t you? Please, let me help you."

"...."

For minutes that seemed to last hours, Haruka relaxed, and finally allowed the boy touch him.

The greyish skin of his tail were much thicker than the skin of the upper part of his body, but it was sensitive enough to feel the boy’s hands were quite warm. The boy, on the other side, looked simply amazed, sliding his hand over the smooth skin in a caress.

"Hey!" Haruka shouted, startling him. His cheeks were slighty tinted pink.

"Sorry" the boy laughed, turning his attention back to the bruise on Haruka’s side "I thought you had scales."

"Fishes have scales. But I'm not a fish, I'm a dolphin hybrid."

"Ah..." he nodded lazily. He found the bruise, and below a bunch of threads tangled on the mermaid's body, an hook. "That’s why it’s hurting so much, this thing has gotten stuck on you. I think it will hurt a bit, but just hang on, ok?"

Haruka closed his eyes as he felt the sharp pain of the metal moving inside his skin, but didn’t make any sound. The boy pulled the net away to focus on where the hook was stuck. After some minutes, Haruka felt it being removed from him, and sighed in relief.

"I'm done. It’s still bleeding, but will stop soon. I think."

"It will." Haruka nodded, looking down.

"Hey" the human suddenly smiled. "what’s your name?"

"Haru...ka." he spoke in a low tone, like always, but unlikely the old sailor, the boy laughed.

" _Haruka?_ Here, it’s a girly name!"

"Oh? And what’s yours?"

"Ah, it’s...Rin." the boy was taken aback.

"As far as I know, yours is also ‘girly’!"

Silent fell over them again. Till Haruka, suddenly, sensed a vibration on the water. A voice.

"Makoto must be searching for me. I need to go."

More silence. Haruka hesitated. He didn't wanted to do it, but... there was no other way, he needed to ask. With his brows furrowed in embarassement, he looked at the other boy.

"M-mm...T...the sand....I can't...."

"Ah, yeah!" the human grinned widely as he lifted a now completely flustered Haru off the ground "Let’s go!"

Rin, with the buoyancy helping him support his weight, went as deep in the water as he could, where the mermaid could already float from his arms back to the water. He let go, but, for his shock, before he dived, the little mermaid reached out for his face.

"Humans do have warm skin."

The boy said nothing, but a light blush spread across his face. He then heard a voice calling too, this time for him, and both diverged quickly from each other. The mermaid looked back one last time before sinking.

"...Don’t tell anything to anyone what happened, ok?"

"Ok" he winked. "It will be our secret." Both ran away then, going back to these who called for them.

Haruka swam fast to the high sea. He still felt a bit of pain on his tail, but he didn’t care about it now. His mind was a mess of different feelings, the adrenalin from having just done something wrong, the slight relief from be going back from the experience- almost- unharmed. But, above all of this, there was a different felling; something he couldn’t explain in words.

But something that, deep inside, he couldn’t wait to feel again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't assure you that I will continue this, but thanks for reading so far.


	3. Normality and bothers

The first thing Makoto noticed as he saw Haru was the bruise on his side.  
  
"Uah, Haru! What happened to you?"  
  
"It was an accident." Haruka dismissed his worried inquire, but as Makoto kept staring at his back with wide eyes, he quickly added "I will explain later. Now we need to get back, fast."  
  
Indeed, as soon as they reached the bottom of the ocean, they barely had time to talk.  
  
"Makoto! Where were you, boys?" Makoto’s mother came to them, rubbing her son’s hair as if to check if he was hurt "You forgot you have school today?"  
  
"N-no, mama...we just...ah... w-we need to rush! We are so late!"  
  
For their relief, she didn’t insist. She was always like this, worrying first for her son’s safety than any other thing. But this time, what they considered luck, she also didn't seem to have noticed Haru hiding his bruised side behind Makoto.

Unfortunately, with the teacher, they knew they wouldn't have the same luck.  
  
"Uh..." They ran as fast as they could to the school. The teacher, miss Vorona, wasn’t owner of the nicest of the moods, and they most certainly would get a scolding "you got hurt, and now we’re late. Teacher will be really angry. Can things get any worse?"  
  
"Yes" was Haruka reply "today there’s singing class."  
  
"Ugh" Makoto groaned.  
  
They were the last ones to arrive, and by the teacher’s expression, the class had already begun a while ago.  
  
"Nanase. Tachibana. It’s better you two don’t make it an habit" she ignored Makoto’s timid apologies and turned to keep writing on the flat stone whatever was it that she was explaining "Go, sit down."  
  
The boys settled on the only part of the rock that was still not occupied. They other cubs were quietly waiting for the class to reinitiate.  
  
"Hey, Haru-chan" Makoto whispered when it semmed nobody was looking at them, coming closer to haruka "where did you go when you disappeared?I was worried."  
  
"Nowhere specific. I just kept swimming."  
  
"And hurt yourself?"  
  
"I got stuck on a hook. I couldn't move because of the pain, so I was dragged to the beach."  
  
"Haru!" Mako’s eyes widened "And how did you manage to free yourself?"  
  
Haruka looked away.  
  
"A human helped me" Makoto opened his mouth to say something, but realized he wasn’t in the right of complain. So he let his curiosity take over instead.  
  
"What was he like?""  
  
"...Kinda annoying. And small, I believe he was still a cub too."  
  
"Did he touch you?"  
  
"Eh--"  
  
"You two, silence" the teacher had already finished her writings and were now looking severely at them, her yellow eyes glistening furiously "or, better, since you two seem to be really up today, what about being the first ones to present the singing lesson? Tachibana, come here."  
  
Haruka watched his friend gulp. Makoto wasn’t any good on singing. He wasn’t any worse than Haru, but doing it alone, in front of the whole class, almost made him be. Not that his voice was bad, but maybe if he wasn’t so shy...  
  
Truth to be tol, maybe that was irritated the teacher so much: they weren’t good at anything. Haruka was a disaster at singing. Makoto couldn't hunt (he felt so sorry for the fish that once, Haru had caught him eating seaweed). In biology, Makoto actually did good; at least, till the breeding part. How could someone learn if he spend the whole class with his face red like a tomato?  
  
And Haruka... he didn’t care much about how was doing in school, at all.  
  
Makoto got up from the rock, shaking. He opened his mouth, and the sound that left it was enough to make some of the other cubs squirm in shame.  
  
"No, no, Tachibana." the teacher interrupted him, seeming to feel pity for the boy. "You must stop forcing your voice. The sound is softer, listen" she demonstrated, singing an antique song. The cubs listened, admired.  
  
"Understood..." Makoto lowered his head, embarrassed.  
  
"Good. Just practice a bit more, okay?" she gave him a tap on the shoulder "who’s next?"  
  
"But teacher, we don’t need to sing only traditional songs, do we?" a blonde girl asked.  
  
"No. Actually, you can sing whatever you want. Later you will all learn to create your own songs and how to use them according to the situation you are in, but till them, you can practice with the ones you already know."  
  
"Why do we even need to learn this...?" Haruka grunted to himself, but apparently, a bit too loud. The teacher’s eyes narrowed.  
  
"What did you said, young boy?"  
  
"Nothing" he looked away, not meeting her glare.  
  
"Listen, Nanase" the other cubs curled on their rocks, making themselves smaller "you had the luck to be born with an appearance that makes your charm more developed than in the other mermaids, even being still a cub, but don’t think it will save you from everything. Our voices are still our best and safest ability, so make sure to open your mind to learn and develop it."  
  
"A cute face won’t save you from becoming a shark’s bait" a mocking voice came from somewhere behind him. The teacher gave it's owner a murderous glare.  
  
"This serves for each one of you. Well, let’s continue. Next one!"  
  
Haruka sank further on his rock. _Great._ Or he starts singing better, or something really bad could happen. _I'm feeling really motivated to practice now._

  
  
                                                                                                                                                                   ---------

  
  
"Mmmm...hunting abilities...types of fishes...this book is too hard." Makoto and Haruka laid on the seaweeds, Haruka on his back, lost in his own world, while Makoto attempted to study with an overused book he borrowed on the library after class. It was a funny sight, since the book was almost as big as him. Vorona said that they should try first studing the theory before going to the practical part, and well, they were trying. Well, at least Makoto was.  
  
"It talks about the ‘charm’ she mentioned too... you can use it on hunting to make the prey easier to catch." he readed out loud. Haruka kept facing the water above him, just the tip of his tail slightly moving in irritation.  
  
Of course he had heard about the _charm_ , the mermaid’s ability that allowed them to enchant other creatures and give themselves a big advantage on a possible attack or getaway. He also knew that, in the past, it was the main weapon of the mermaid’s against humans.  
  
He frowned.

It was only this far his knowledge on the subject went. However, he didn’t knew how to use or activate the 'charm'. The physical appearance was related to it, he knew, but to which point? The teacher said the way he looks made him more developed on it than his classmates, but what exactly did it mean? Charm wasn’t on him like, an automatic ability, right?

This thought seemed futile. But it wasn’t what bothered him.

He remembered the amazed way that human had looked at him when he discovered he wasn't one of his, and how his eyes had glistened in awe when his hands came in contact with the skin of tail.  
  
_Does it mean that human could have only helped me because he was enchanted by the charm ability?_  
  
Disgusting.  
  
And the fact that such a thing bothered him, somehow made it even more annoying.  
  
"Here says that the charm must never be used against squids and octopuses. Do you remember why, Haru?"  
  
"No." he was starting to believe he should really pay more attention to class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the chapter without any interesting events (and my inability to come up with secondary character names xD). 
> 
> If someone is confused, the 'charm' ability I'm referring here is the capacity of the mermaids to enchant other creatures with it's beauty; however, In this fic, it's closer to a spell than appearance itself. Remember succubus ability? Kind of that. I plan to explain it further on later chapters ;)
> 
> Thanks for reading, reviews and critiques are veery welcome. See ya...?


	4. I saw a mermaid!

Rin and Sousuke were on the classroom. It was a typical school day: noisy class, time to do math exercises, but since the teacher had left them alone to go to the bathroom- a probably excuse to get some moments of peace, a coffe and some chatter on the secretary-, nobody was really doing it. A paper plane hit Sousuke’s head, who was splayed on his desk. Rin was pretending to do the work, but when saw Sousuke was also not doing anything, and was actually either asleep or almost (because he had no reaction when the plane almost went inside his ear), he leaned forward his desk to call him, looking to the sides to make sure no one were looking.

"Hey... are you sleeping?" Sousuke answered an “uh?”, raising his head. His droopy eyes looked even more droopy than normal. Clearly, his brain was anywhere but here "Sousuke... I Will tell you a secret."

"If you’re going to tell me, then it’s not a secret, moron."

"I know! What I mean is that you can’t tell anyone, stupid!" he pushed Sousuke's back angrily.

"Ok,ok. Tell me then. What’s up?" He changed his posture a bit, looking interested. Rin came closer to him to make sure no one could hear, and said as if it was the most secret thing on the world.

"I saw a mermaid."

Sousuke started laughing so loudly that everyone in the class stopped what they were doing to look at them. Some just glanced and went back to throwing whatever was it that they were fighting with-wait, was that a sock?- and others simply kept staring bluntly. Rin gave his friend another hit on his back to try to stop his laughing attack.

Ok, he should have expected that.

 _I_ _hope he die from lack of air._

"Rin..." Sousuke said, wiping a tear from his cheek "you borrowed Gou's fairy books again?"

"I didn't- I _never_ did it! She just put them accidentaly on my bag that day" Rin looked at same time flustered and irritated "and shut your mouth, because if I knew you would scream it to the whole world I could have done it myself."

"Ah, quit lying, Rin, I know pretty well you cried watching Snow Whi---" this time, Rin pushed him so hard he almost fell off the chair. This time, Sousuke turned serious and straighted his back on his seat.

"No more words about fairy tales. I just wanted to tell you because you are my best friend, but I wouldn’t have if I knew you would suddenly go crazy and call the attention of the whole class. Even because... he actually asked me to keep it a secret."

Sousuke raised an eyebrow.

"Who do you mean by 'he'? Your father? Is even him on your jokes?"

"No, it wasn’t my father." Rin ignored his provocation "It was the mermaid. I think he’s afraid of people."

"Afraid...?" Sousuke threw his friend a suspicious glare "and can you tell me how that 'mermaid' looked like?"

"Ah, beautiful..." he ran a hand through his hair, feeling suddenly embarassed on remembering Haruka "he look just like us, you know? From waist up. But his eyes were very blue, very bright... even brighter than the sea in a sunny day. In a way I have never seen before."

"See? Now you are in love with a thing that don’t even exist! Your father needs to stop taking you to the sea with him, Rin, the salt is harming your brain!"

"I’m not in love with it! Even because, Haruka was a guy, ok?"

"A guy? Are you saying there are male mermaids, now?"

"Of course there are, idiot. Doesn't Ariel have her father? He’s mermaid, isn’t he?"

"Weeell, he is..." Sousuke looked to the floor. Ouch, the lack of sleep was making this story even more confusing "but it doesn’t matter. Mermaids doesn’t exist and end of the story. We are not babies anymore, quit lying-"

"It’s not a lie! Ask the sailors on the harbor, they have already seen them, too!"

"Ah, but fisherman are all liars!"

"Don’t call my father a liar!" Rin roared.

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to call. But Rin, seriously, I can't—" before he could finish, the bell ringed, making all the crowded kids ran to the door. Sousuke got up, throwing a teasing look to his friend.

"Let’s go, Ariel. It’s time for physical education class. Let’s see if it puts your head a bit away from the fairy tales and the clear eyed princes."

Rin scowled. Geez, Sousuke knew how to be annoying. But if he didn’t want to believe, that’s okay; at least Rin knew he wouldn't betray him and tell anyone. In truth, he believed Sousuke would probably forget the story the moment he stepped on the court and would only remember it again when he needed to tease him.

But hey, what the hell was the problem with fairy tales?

 

☆*✧**✧*☆✧

 

Haruka whined a bit when he tried to find a more confortable position on the nest. He coudn’t sleep. Makoto’s mother had taken care of his back, but it was still quite sensitive. Luckly, he didn’t feel much like sleeping, to be honest.

A delicate blue light entered the cavern where he and Makoto were sleeping from an opening in the rocks. Haruka laid with his belly down, and procedded to watch his friend sleep besides him. Miss Tachibana was really nice with him that afternoon. She didn’t insist in knowing what happened, and showed no worries about anything besides his health. Haruka ate dinner with them and then, she put him to sleep as if he was one of her cubs. He imagined she woudn’t get mad, even if he told what he was really doing when he got hurt. Much different from his father...

Haruka turned again, laying on his unharmed side. He slowly slid his fingers across the skin where that human had touched, remembering his touch. He was... indeed quite warm. Would he be sleeping right now? Nests on the surface should be confortable, he thought. If they were warm, like his body was... it must feel good.

He shouldn’t be thinking about those things, he knew. But the little mermaid felt somehow happy on thinking them, like those late night fantasies that don't really harm anyone, because they stay lost on the darkness of the night as the daylight comes.

The next day would be a good day, he thought. His back would fell better, so he and Makoto could play together, and he had heard some classmates saying they would have news on the school. Not that he believed it would be of his interest. But yeah, everything seemed to be going well.

Slowly, his thoughts started to become more and more unfocused, untill he feel into a deep sleep, his small heart beating slow and satisfied.


End file.
